


are we out of the woods yet? (alex interlude)

by justsomejerk



Series: malex: out of the woods [3]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: M/M, Michael Guerin (Mentioned) - Freeform, Rosa Loves Pod-Related Expressions, Rosa and Kyle Therapize Alex, post S1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23367688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justsomejerk/pseuds/justsomejerk
Summary: Rosa and Kyle force Alex to talk about his issues with Michael.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: malex: out of the woods [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656865
Comments: 5
Kudos: 69





	are we out of the woods yet? (alex interlude)

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place a few days after Michael's talk with Isobel and Rosa in part 2 of this series.
> 
> Title from Taylor Swift's Out of the Woods.

Alex can’t pinpoint exactly when it happened, but Friday nights are now reserved for dinner with Kyle and Rosa. Kyle had been complaining about how Rosa wouldn’t let him be a brother to her, and Alex reluctantly tried to help out by having them over some nights. Somewhere along the way, it became a tradition. 

He can tell from the first look Rosa gives him that Kyle has blabbed to her about everything, and he takes the opportunity to pelt Kyle with potato chips and fixes him with a stern look. “Really, Kyle?”

“She beats me with spray cans until I tell her all the hot goss!”

“Ugh, Kyle! Never use the expression ‘hot goss’ again.” Alex shakes his head as he turns back to the stove, where his chili is simmering. 

Before he can continue, Rosa asks, with her steely eyes burning a hole in Alex’s back: “So. You and Michael. Fucking and fighting is your whole thing then, huh?”

“I really miss when we were a secret no one knew about.” As he stirs, he shakes his head ruefully.

“As far as I can tell, that’s never actually been the case. Even Max Evans knew about you guys in high school.”

“I also kinda thought something might be up when the first time you picked a fight with me was when you spotted Guerin watching us at prom.” Kyle shrugs in an almost-apology when Alex sighs in defeat. 

“My point is, you love each other and you want to be with each other but you keep messing up. Right? Tonight is the night we fix that.” Rosa makes her declaration with a flourish of her arms and a devious sparkle in her eyes. 

Alex feels a vise take hold of his heart and squeeze as he locks eyes with her and coldly responds, “There’s nothing to fix. It’s done.”

“Manes, stop it. Michael came here to get back together. Yes, he messed up by not even letting you speak before assuming you were fine, and yes he got jealous when he had no right to. But you know, you ended up doing the same thing.”

“Excuse m-!”

“You didn’t give him a chance to respond! Kyle said you slammed a door in his face after some self-righteous speech putting him in his place. That’s not communication, Alex. That’s a way of shutting down communication so it doesn’t have to happen at all.”

Alex makes a sputtering sound Kyle knows is reserved for Michael-related indignation only. “Who are you blaming here? Michael came barging in here with tears in his eyes to soften me up-”

Kyle chuckles. “He wasn’t trying to soften you up, Alex. He’s just an idiot in love with you who doesn’t know how to deal with ten years of history and baggage. Sound familiar?”

“I’m not required to take him back cause he cried and said he felt bad. Just like he wasn’t required to take me back when I-” Alex cuts himself off. Quickly, he turns on his heel and switches off the stove and, purposefully avoiding the watchful eyes of the Ortecho-Valenti siblings, grabs a beer off the table and disappears to plop down on the couch in the next room.

He doesn’t resist or even speak when Kyle and Rosa slowly make their way over and take seats on either side of him. Kyle’s arm tentatively snakes along the back of the couch. Alex feels his heavy stare on his profile, but he simply sips his beer, stubbornly letting the silence hang in the air.

“Alex, I’m only going along with this because I assumed what you really want is to be with him. But if you want to move on, I’m sure I can find a muzzle around here for this brat sister of mine and I’ll help you set up the hottest Grindr profile possible. I’m great at finding the best angles, especially for guys like us with _exceptional_ cheekbones.” The amusement in his voice is what makes Alex crack. He swivels his head to glance at him and can’t help the laughter that stirs inside him at his best friend’s attempt at a joke. 

Rosa, having been uncharacteristically silent for a few minutes, follows Kyle’s lead and settles her arm around Alex too. 

It takes a few long minutes of silence before Alex’s shoulders heave with his heavy breath. When he speaks, his voice is tremulous and hesitant, unlike anything Rosa or Kyle have ever heard from him. “What if we finally try for real and he realizes he doesn't even like me as a person?”

He doesn't need to look to know Kyle and Rosa are exchanging meaningful expressions above his head.

“Okay,” Rosa begins. “What if that's what happens?”

“Rosa!” Kyle's voice is shocked and more than a little annoyed.

“Well, why _not_ play out the worst case scenario? You like to be prepared, right, Alex?” At her poking into his ribs, Alex looks at her. He hadn’t realized until the day Kyle and Liz brought him to Max's place months ago to reveal the news of her resurrection how much he’d missed her big brown eyes, whether angry, spiteful, gleeful or tear-filled. They’d never been particularly close, but she’d taught him how to apply eyeliner and they were always the guitar players when the group got together before Rosa’s drug use got bad and Kyle’s secret taunting became too much. Rosa had always _seen_ him in an unspoken way he still can’t vocalize to this day, and it was a comfort to have that back.

He swallows and nods. “Yes. I do.”

Kyle is unsure, but Rosa barrels ahead. “So you get back together. You think everything is perfect until the day Michael tells you that you’re not the person he thought you were and he leaves you. What then?”

Alex can already feel tears forming in his eyes, and his anger towards himself rises. _Control yourself._ “I don't know. I've spent over a decade now thinking about this nebulous future when my dad would be out of the picture and Michael and I could be together. I’ve never been able to picture a future without him. I’ve never wanted to.”

“Try.”

“Well. I wouldn't stay in Roswell. He’s the only reason I ever came back here. I’ve spent too much time in deserts. Sometimes I think I might like the ocean, for a little while anyway. I thought once I got out of the Air Force, maybe I’d do some cybersecurity work. I could do that from anywhere with WiFi.”

“And you’d date.” Kyle adds. At the look Alex gives him, he quickly utters, “If you think you’ll never love anyone else like him, or be loved, you’re wrong. Because I would come visit wherever you are and be the most aggressive wingman a guy could ever hope for. Or _not_ hope for, as the case may be.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “I would intentionally move to the most remote coastal village in Maine or Oregon just to make getting there a complete headache for you, Valenti.”

“I like a challenge, Manes.”

“Well anyway, yeah. I guess eventually I’d date. And, I don’t know, maybe I could even mostly be happy.” He stumbles over those words, yet forces them out. Saying them outloud makes him realize there is a small chance they could somehow come true. 

But it doesn’t make him _want_ that future. 

Rosa pulls her arm tighter around Alex and leans her head on his shoulder. “So, now that we got that out of the way, I have it on good authority that your own personal E.T. feels bad and wants to apologize. He also _may_ have realized he’s been wrong about a few things.”

Alex heaves a sigh, shifting to allow Rosa to lean on him more comfortably. Neither of them are usually physical like this, but they’ve been growing closer over the past few months and he has been working to overcome his ingrained instincts that resist physical contact, so he tries to relax into it. “I’m not sure how we can even start dealing with… all of this, though. I was really harsh with him. And all those times I visited him on leave, I never meant for him to feel abandoned, but that’s how he sees it. He has lived with over a decade of thinking I was toying with him. How do you make up for that?”

“By doing what you’ve been doing for months – staying. Even when he pushed you away, you kept offering help when it was needed. You did everything you could for his family. All you guys need to do now is _actually talk_.”

Rosa shoves Alex lightly on the chest when Kyle finishes speaking. “Yeah, Alex! _Talking_. No sex. No-sex rule for you two! Come on, Kyle, support me on this.”

“I actually have to agree with the little sis on this one.” Kyle threw his hands up and smiled. “Use your words. But if you really do want advice-” He pauses to give Alex a moment to object, but instead, he turns towards him to listen. “Explain that you never meant to make him feel abandoned, but recognize that his feelings are valid and important, and that you’re gonna do everything you can from now on to never let him feel that way again.”

“Will anything really be enough to make up for that though? I mean, you should have seen how hurt he was after Noah’s funeral-”

“Oh my god, nobody likes a martyr, Manes! Let your pod paramour love you already!”

Kyle starts laughing as Alex throws her a quizzical look, tinged with amusement. “Pod paramour? Really?”

“Hey, I’m trying my best to come up with alien alliteration with no help from anyone. They can’t all be winners! And don’t change the subject.” Alex stares at her as she talks, the humour dissipating. Her eyes averted, she fiddles with her bracelets as she speaks. “Holding on to all of your mistakes will eat you up inside. Don’t let your fear that you’ll screw things up keep you from taking a chance. The person you love, loves you back and wants to be with you. Not everyone is so lucky.” 

And with that, she stands, tugging on his wrist. “Let’s eat while we talk about you and Michael being two interplanetary peas in a glowing pod.”

Kyle and Alex manage to lock eyes and roll them simultaneously as Rosa dashes to the kitchen to grab bowls. 

As she loudly hunts through Alex’s cabinets, Kyle rests a tentative hand on his forearm, his eyebrows knitting together in concern. “You okay? You wanna talk about something else?”

“No, it’s okay. It’s uncomfortable, but I know you guys mean well.”

“Well, I’m about to make you even more uncomfortable.” Alex’s eyebrows jump at that, and he stares warily as he waits for Kyle to continue. “I love you.”

The eye roll and the “Oh my _god_ , Valenti,” Kyle receives in response as Alex turns abruptly and heads into the kitchen isn’t surprising, but it doesn’t dissuade him. He follows and calls after Alex in a singsong voice, “I love you, Manes, and you can’t stop me from saying it!”

Alex gives a melodramatic shudder as he grabs one of the bowls Rosa has scooped for him, along with a piece of bread. She laughs in Kyle’s direction and says, “Oh, are we forcing Alex to confront having actual feelings to prepare him for talking to Michael? Excellent idea, dear brother. In that case, Alex.” She moves to stand in front of him and takes his face in his hand, even as he tries to flinch away while choking out a laugh. She grips him hard, looks him in the face with a devious glint in her eye and sternly says, “I love you.”

Alex makes a show of attempting to remove himself from her grip. “I hate you both,” he grumbles while stubbornly averting his eyes. 

She is laughing and grabbing for the bowl in his hand even as he resists. “You don’t, and that’s the point. Trying to avoid love didn’t get you where you wanted to be, so knock it off, Manes. Time to face the music. You don’t get to eat until you promise you will.”

Leaning casually against the counter and offering zero help as they play-fight, Kyle adds through a mouthful of bread, “And by music, we mean Michael Guerin.” 

At this point Rosa has successfully wrestled Alex’s food away from him and is holding it high above her head. “Promise you’ll talk to him! We’re giving you a one week deadline. Promise!”

Alex mashes his lips together in a thin tense line. He glances over at Kyle for help, but his friend only shrugs, now helping himself to the last of Alex’s beer. 

Alex rolls his eyes until he’s staring up at the ceiling, letting a dramatic sigh out to match Rosa’s theatrics. “Fine. I promise I’ll talk to him.”

Rosa and Kyle exchange a smirk, satisfied with their work. 


End file.
